PIONEERING DRIVELINE-
ACTIVE TECHNOLOGY ZF Friedrichschafen AG is a global leader in driveline and chassis technology and recently enhanced its global position with the acquisition of another major global player, TRW Automotive. Philip Yorke reports on a company that has a combined turnover of more than €30 billion and looks at its latest active and passive safety technology. In addition, Industry Europe highlights the company’s special recognition of its top 14 suppliers worldwide.
ZF
Friedrichschafen AG is also known as the ZF Group and is headquartered in Friedrichschafen, in the south-west region of Germany known as Baden-Wurttemberg. Specialising in engineering excellence, it is renowned for its design, research, development and manufacturing activities in the automotive industry. It is a worldwide supplier of driveline and chassis technology for cars and commercial vehicles along with specialist plant equipment for the construction industry. It is also involved in the rail, marine, defence and aviation industries as
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well as in many other industrial applications. Prior to its recent acquisition of TRW, the company had 113 production locations in 26 countries with approximately 72,000 employees.
Driving technology forward ZF recently completed its acquisition of one of its main competitors, TRW Automotive of Germany. This will be incorporated into a new ZF division called Active & Passive Safety Technology. The
